Rolling down Holt Avenue, I had the strange feeling that we weren’t just driving, we were crossing invisible borders. One block looked like “America the Beautiful,” the next like “America the Cautionary Tale.”

On one side of Holt, tidy houses with trimmed lawns, cars washed and polished, kids riding bikes. The other side? Bars on windows, stray shopping carts, and tired motels that looked like they had seen one too many police visits. We didn’t know the details yet, but we could feel the line dividing “good” Pomona from “bad” Pomona.

Michael muttered, “If this is Pomona… what will La Verne look like?”

And then, just a few miles further east, the landscape began to change. The chaos softened. Streets grew quieter. The houses looked more suburban, more “postcard.” Then the palm trees appeared, lined up like sentinels in front of wide streets. Signs started pointing us toward La Verne.

When we finally rolled into town, it felt like we had stumbled onto a Hollywood set. La Verne in the late 1970s was small, sleepy, and almost too clean. A Main Street straight out of a TV show, with a diner, a drugstore, a barber shop. Kids played on sidewalks. Old men sat on benches watching the world go by as if it moved too fast everywhere else but not here.

And then, the University itself. Not a towering metropolis of buildings, not a giant campus like UCLA, but something more human-sized. Red brick buildings. A tidy quad. Palm trees swaying like they had been hired just to welcome us. Students walking around in shorts and T-shirts, smiling, carrying books.

We parked the Pinto and just sat there for a moment.

“Michael,” I said, almost whispering, “I think we made it.”

For the first time since we left JFK, I actually believed it.

Friday afternoon, around 3:30, just before a long holiday weekend, we walked into the Admissions Office.

“Hello,” we said, trying to sound calm and collected, though we probably looked like two refugees who had just crawled out of the Pinto after a desert crossing.

The lady behind the desk looked up, squinted for a second, and then exclaimed:

“You must be Nick and Mike!”

Her excitement was so explosive that she actually tumbled backward off her chair. Papers flew, the typewriter wobbled, and Michael and I just stood there frozen, wondering if this was some kind of American initiation ritual.

She popped back up, red-faced but grinning. “We’ve been waiting for you! Everyone was worried you wouldn’t make it before the weekend.”

Michael and I exchanged a glance that said, if only you knew.

We had sprinted through JFK, negotiated with Hertz without a credit card, survived Inglewood, gotten lost in Pomona, and nearly died in the middle of an intersection — but here we were. Alive. At the University of La Verne. And apparently, celebrities in the Admissions Office.

For the first time since boarding that plane in Athens, I felt it, relief. We had actually arrived.

The registrar appeared, wearing the kind of professional smile that usually comes with bad news.

“With an apologetic face,” she began, “as you know, there is no availability in our dormitory. And with the long weekend ahead of us, it will be difficult for us to help you settle in. Let’s meet on Tuesday and we’ll try to assist you in the best way possible. Welcome to ULV!”

Michael and I blinked in unison.

“Tuesday?” I repeated, as if maybe my English had failed me.“Yes,” she said cheerfully. “Tuesday.”

I looked at Michael. Michael looked at me. No dorm. No apartment. No plan. Three and a half days in California with nowhere to go.

We forced polite smiles, nodded like this was all perfectly normal, and walked out of the office. The California sun hit us square in the face.

Michael muttered, “So what now?”I shrugged. “We find a place to stay. How hard can it be?”

First things first, coffee. We needed to regroup.

We spotted a little shop that looked like a donut place, so we walked in. The air smelled of sugar, fryer oil, and burnt coffee. Perfect.

We ordered two coffees, and the girl at the counter, cheerful and efficient, asked:“Do you want something to eat with that?”

Without hesitation, I responded with a straight face:“A cheese pie.”

Now, please understand this was not 2025 in Santorini, or even Astoria where every corner has a bakery selling spanakopita, tiropita, bougatsa, you name it. This was 1980, in a small California suburb.

The girl’s face froze. Like a deer caught in headlights.“What??” she blurted.

“Cheese pie,” I repeated, patiently. Surely she just hadn’t heard me.

She blinked.“Cheese… pie?”

On the third attempt, my tone sharpened. “Cheese pie!” This time I sounded less like a customer and more like a disappointed teacher: “Are you an idiot?” I thought to myself.

Behind me, Michael was shaking with laughter, muttering, “They don’t have cheese pies here! Just donuts, donuts!”

The girl blinked again, looking both apologetic and confused. “We have glazed, jelly-filled, and chocolate sprinkles…” she offered, as though sprinkles might somehow be a substitute for feta.

I sighed, defeated. In America, apparently, a cheese pie was a foreign concept. So I sat down with a cup of watery coffee and a sugar bomb donut, thinking to myself. If we survive this weekend, it will be a miracle.

to be continued on October 11th…